Chipmaker AMD is pushing ahead with its latest Opteron server processors. The chipmaker just rolled out its 12-core and 16-core AMD Opteron 6300 Series, code named "Warsaw."

The new series of processors is designed to meet the demands of enterprise workloads. The 6300s feature what AMD calls the "Piledriver" core and are fully socket and software compatible with the existing AMD Opteron 6300 Series.

"With the continued move to virtualized environments for more efficient server utilization, more and more workloads are limited by memory capacity and I/O bandwidth," said Suresh Gopalakrishnan, corporate vice president and general manager, Server Business Unit at AMD. "The Opteron 6338P and 6370P processors are server CPUs optimized to deliver improved performance per-watt for virtualized private cloud deployments with less power and at lower cost points."

Core Value Propositions

AMD said the new Opteron 6338P (12 core) and 6370P (16 core) processors are in response to requests and are optimized to handle the heavily virtualized workloads found in enterprise environments, including the more complex compute needs of data analysis, xSQL and traditional databases, at optimal performance per-watt, per-dollar.

We caught up with Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, to get his take on the new Opterons. He told us AMD is focusing on three of its core value propositions: driving extremely aggressive pricing, focusing on highly energy-efficient CPUs and designing solutions primarily for highly virtualized applications and business applications and workloads.

“In x86, virtualization is the keyword for most business computing these days and these new Opterons seem to be designed to support these kinds of environments by delivering higher memory capacity and better I/O bandwidth,” King said. “AMD is doing it at a price that is kind to the pocket book on the Capex side but also delivers energy savings that will be welcomed by many customers on the Opex side as well.”

Finding the Market

AMD is touting the power efficiency and cost effectiveness of the new processors as ideal for its Open 3.0 Open Compute Platform -- which the company bills as the industry's most cost effective Open Compute platform.

Building on its legacy of innovative datacenter solutions, AMD has aligned with the Open Compute initiative to help design highly efficient server solutions at the lowest possible costs. AMD describes Open 3.0 as the first and only Open Compute platform that can be deployed in a standard rack infrastructure and can be easily adapted for cloud computing, storage and high-performance computing.

“Opteron was greeted with open arms by the industry and the market when it was first introduced. AMD has struggled a bit with maintaining their position in the server market,” King said.

“I did note AMD is positioning the new chips as being ideal for the Open Compute project systems that the folks at Facebook came up. The Open Compute project architecture is aimed at highly dense cloud computing environments. I believe that AMD would very much like to establish a position in that market. It would be great from a product shipment and perspective, and from the look of these new Opteron solutions the company appears to have a tech that appears to play very well in that space," he said.

The new AMD Opteron 6338P and 6370P processors are available today through Penguin and Avnet system integrators and have been qualified for servers from Sugon and Supermicro at a starting price of $377 and $598, respectively.